At about 3 months old Anna has been growing a lot since we last saw her. She’s filled out and has tons of personality– and the cutest yawns! I enjoyed shooting this new family on saturday afternoon in my studio, my favorites are below…
Rachel and Phil tied were married on October 18th, 2009 under a beautiful handpainted hupa at the Tribeca Grill in Manhattan. Rachel’s dress was simply gorgeous, and I love how her veil looked in the pictures during the ceremony (see below). The afternoon was filled with emotional moments. I was so pleased to be there shooting this wedding– I was very impressed with this wedding. You could sense that everything was selected (menu, dj, attire, flowers, every last detail) to complement both the couple and the venue in spirit and atmosphere… a task which is not always so easily accomplished! I was very happy to meet their DJ, Colleen-- as I will certainly be recommending her to any couples that are looking for hip DJ (with a great voice too) that can get multiple generations out on the floor without going to the cliched wedding standards we hear so very often. But enough about the DJ! Congratulations, Rachel and Phil!!! And best of luck with the marathon this weekend!
Phil’s grandmother had so much fun– she danced throughout the night and the smile on her face here is just radiant, I love this shot.
This was shot on a tripod with my fisheye lens… long exposure to capture the motion of all the dancing going on…
They had these adorable cupcakes with flowers that matched the floral arrangements… oh, and THIS amazing looking chocolate desert below! HOW TO CHOOSE?!
These two were made for eachother… they have so much fun together on and off the dance floor… did i mention they’re about to run a marathon together? Like, THIS WEEKEND! that’s right, two weeks after their wedding. pretty amazing.
I loved this moment… it was a spontaneous group hug around the bride on the dance floor… not sure how the huggers all knew eachother (college? camp? high school?) but they clearly go way back. It was super sweet.
Hello all, I’ve just gotten back to my desk after 3 jam-packed days at the PhotoPlus Expo (a photographers conference and trade show that I look forward to every year here at the Javitz center). I went to a slew of very interesting seminars and rubbed shoulders (so to speak) with some of the industry’s most talented and forward-thinking photographers (both wedding and portrait professionals alongside commercial photographers, fine artists and photojournalists), and of course I got to scout around on the trade show floor for the latest and greatest products to offer my clients… There’s nothing like being able to inspect an album company’s sample book styles before investing in them for my clients.
This year showed a marked improvement in the offerings available– I must say I absolutely fell in love with the styles offered by Couture Book– which is a brand new company offering absolutely gorgeous custom HAND BOUND art albums in a book-page style- up to 100 pages (50 spreads) is the minimum order per book so they look nice and thick and are FULL of images– BUT WITH FINE ART PAPERS and hand-torn edges available! Some of their book styles have these amazing embossed borders on each page around the images… AND You can ADD PRINTED VELLUM LEAVES! I’m sorry if I sound dramatic, but these are features I think are long overdue in the wedding album category… Flush mount albums can be quite stunning and are an excellent way of presenting and preserving your most treasured images from a wedding in storybook form… but these albums come with up to 100 pages AS A STANDARD! Yes, the pages are paper– bendable paper and not board-like leaves as with a Flush Mount. But in terms of the quality and style of presentation, these books have a HUGE artistic edge over anything else I’ve seen offered to photographers, and beleive me, i’ve had my eye on the options for a number of years now… I have an entire filing cabinet drawer full of the catalogs and ordering and design protocol information for basically every album and book-maker company in existence that will take orders from the U.S.
Being an experienced artist-book maker myself in my fine art practice (hand binding books from home-made prints and materials) I know good craftmanship when I see it, and trust me, this stuff is what you want. Worth every penny. I can’t wait to have some sample albums made so I can share these with clients. Until then check out their website. I must admit I find the ‘high fashion’ vibe of the website a little unnecessary and perhaps distracting– the books could sell themselves I think, and frankly i want to see more close-up book details and less models holding books, but I did really appreciate the “making of” aspect of their opening video– you should check it out (click here).
Also I decided to invest in a sample set of metal-mural prints for my studio– these are a really cool new way of displaying images that is not that much more expensive than canvas wall prints or framed photographs– your image can be divided up into a grid and hung as a set of metal tiles that are attached with a series of rings. Sounds weird at first but given the modern decor of many NYC apartments this style can be just the thing, and it’s certainly quite the conversation piece. I can also order these with different square images in each of the plates– like 4 images of a baby’s facial expressions in a square (can’t wait to order this!) and you can pretty much order any number of plates in any configuration, and the hanging hardware is included. I was thinking if you had a big bathroom or kitchen area that frequently gets steamy and you were nervous about hanging a canvas or any other fine art you could easily hang these in such a spot without worrying about water damage at all!
I met Melissa about a year and a half ago when my studio building was having ‘open studios’… she is an artist and at that time was renting a space in my building. Cut to a year later and Melissa is engaged to the wonderful fellow you see below! They’ll be tying the knot this March in New Orleans, a bit out of my geographical range (though if you want to hire me for an out of town wedding I *will gladly* do it, but you do have to figure in the travel and accomodations for me + my assistant into your budget), but hired me to do some engagement portraits for them. I was so excited when Melissa mentioned the amazing new High Line Park as a possible location– this park is so cool and I hadn’t gotten to do any shoots there yet since it opened. Of course, our scheduled timeslot ended up being incredibly windy and I had no idea how exceedingly popular and crowded this very narrow park is– it’s not as flexible for shooting as Central Park (and may be one of the toughest places I’ve shot, rivalling Times Square!)… but we made out all right and I got some really great shots of them both on the Highline and down at streetlevel in the surrounding neighborhood when it got too cold and windy to bear.
Brendan and Kelly are a couple of sweet lawyers in love… they had a lovely wedding at St. Patrick’s Church in Yorktown Heights, followed by a reception at The Garrison in Garrison, NY. All in all a beautiful and fun day with a beautiful and fun couple. Their guests knew how to cut the rug, too. This place had some of the best service I’ve ever seen. And the food was absolutely to die for. I’m a vegetarian myself and though they seem to specialize in meat they had NO trouble providing me with one of the best meals i’ve had in a month or so… and I was not a guest, but the photographer. Now that’s great service. Check out my favorites!
the above shot by my assistant, Dmitry Gudkov! Nice work upstairs, Dmitry!
I love it when my subjects are comfortable enough to make goofy faces… this makes me smile.
I don’t know what it is but somehow bagpipes always make me cry… as do weddings… the combination? yes. there were tears… i could go on, there were so many nice shots, but you can just watch the slideshow if you’re interested in seeing more 
Filed under: Events
Last week I got a call to shoot an education panel discussion put on by the Harvard Black Alumni Society of NYC and hosted by Scholastic, complete with a VIP cocktail party and speakers like Joel Klein, Chancellor of the NYC Public Schools, along with City Year CEO Michael Brown… It was quite an impressive event– to my surprise there were many students, parents, and teachers in attendance who were there perhaps to take the opportunity to ask questions of the panel. The Q&A alone could have gone on several more hours, one sensed. Congratulations to Enoch Woodhouse, who organized this incredible event. Check out some of my favorite shots from this lively evening of passionate discussion. 
A sweet and intimate marriage ceremony at the Ladies Pavilion in Central Park. Service performed by Reverend Susanna Weiss.
